Hospital admission and hospital death associated to ischemic heart diseases at the National Health System (SUS).

Background: Analyses on mortality rate due to diseases when outcome depends on proper, timely medical intervention may point out the vulnerabilities and inequity associated to health care access. Ischemic heart diseases will act as models for such assessment.

Objective: The present study investigates factors associated to the hospital death rate of patients admitted to hospital due to acute myocardial infarction (AMI) and heart failure (HF), and whether admittance through Belo Horizonte Municipal Health Office (SMSA-BH) Admission Center (AC) was in any way associated to hospital death after adjustment of relevant factors.

[The hospital bed referral center under the Unified National Health System in Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais State, Brazil: the case of hospitalization for ischemic heart disease].

The hospital admissions center in Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais State, Brazil, aims to assure fast, timely, and equitable access to hospitalization services through the Unified National Health System. However, many patients are admitted directly to the hospitals, without going through the admissions center. This study compared the characteristics of hospitalizations in Belo Horizonte in 2002 according to type of access.